


forest of the dead

by andorgyny



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 07:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1502672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andorgyny/pseuds/andorgyny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A branch swings out and brushes her cheek. "Oh, but that would be far too simple an explanation, wouldn't it, Miss Tyler."</p>
            </blockquote>





	forest of the dead

Her footsteps break the glassy silence with their pittering and their pattering. Every step–heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe–pinches the silver dirt. “Doctor,” she whispers, heart beating rapidly inside her ribs.

Forest shifts into a scowl under bare feet. I shall cut her soles open and paint my brown lips red, it rumbles.

And so she is punctured and swallowed by the dirt.

 

 

A girl with threads of gold pouring from her scalp finds herself lost in a Forest. “Is there anyone who might help me?” she asks the trees. “I don’t think I’m in London anymore.”

The strangest sensation touches a deep place between her ears and forehead. “Perhaps I drank too much of Mother’s wine.” She sits on a mangled tree trunk and peels off her heels. “Not the sort of shoes for running, I do very much doubt.”

One of the trees laughs and reaches a knobbly limb out to her. “What a peculiar shape, you are!”

“I’m not the talking tree,” she says and takes his branch. It grips her fingers tightly, and she wonders if a girl has ever held hands with a tree before. “Where am I?”

“You are in the Forest of the Dead, my dear.”

The girl smiles. “Am I dead, then?”

The tree laughs. “Do you feel dead?”

She scrunches up her face and tries to discern her degree of deadness. She doesn’t know what being dead feels like, but she is talking to a tree, so she shrugs. “How can I know, Mr–?”

“Just the Doctor, is fine.” The girl snorts in a way that would earn her lines, were her tutor around.

“But you’re a tree. Surely trees cannot be doctors!”

Bark rattles in wind. “As surely as a pink and yellow creature can be dead.”

“So I am dead, then, Mr. Just-the-Doctor.”

A branch swings out and brushes her cheek. “Oh, but that would be far too simple an explanation, wouldn’t it, Miss Tyler.”

 

 

“Rose? Rose!” He screams, lunging forward as his golden girl slips into the ground.

He feels her heart give out. He almost tastes it. But that could be her blood on his lips, mixed with dirt and moss and something… sentient.

I’ve done you a favor, it soothes.

“Wh–what are you?”

You can have an eternity with her if you so choose.

He rises to his knees. “She’s go–”

But you should know better than that, the Forest whispers. Life is ever-so simple, isn’t it, Doctor?

 

 

She spends the days sprawled across his roots reading poetry; during the nights he cradles her in his withered limbs. Mr. Just-the-Doctor the Tree watches her bathe in the Lethe each night, just out of reach, creamy skin as alive as ever beneath the pale red moon.

He remembers pressing chapped lips to that body. He remembers so much.

After all, he drinks from the Mnemosyne.

 

 

In exchange for your box, I shall give you freedom.

He feels its lips curve below his hands. “Freedom from what?”

“From her death, dear one.”

 

 

He once wondered why the Forest needed his TARDIS, but when she materializes beside him one day, an eternity later, his bark shrivels into a grin.

The door opens.

“I found her,” the girl whispers, a look of awe on her face. “She was floating in the Cocytus, singing the most lonely song. Oh, she was so sad.” A tear trails down from a hazel eye and he yearns to brush it away, but with branches he’s more likely to poke her rather than soothe her. “I know her. In here,” she presses a hand to her breast. “I can save her.”

Mr. Just-the-Doctor wants to shout as his Rose rests her head against the soil.

 

 

The growing process is painful, but he’s been through worse. Just the thought of never… of not… of Rose–

“Just let me hold her.”

 

 

In a forest deep inside a bitter old planet, two lovers reach out their branches, desperate to touch but falling just the slightest bit short.

* * *


End file.
